1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roof structure for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A roof structure with a drip channel has been prevailingly adopted for a vehicle such as a passenger car or truck.
An example of such roof structure with a drip channel is shown in FIGS. 1 to 4.
More specifically, for a door opening 2 in a vehicle body 1 as shown in FIG. 1, a drip channel 4 is spot-welded at point 5 as shown in FIG. 2 to a side outer member 3 which provides a lateral surface of a car cabin. A roof member 6 is placed on the member 3 from right above and is spot-welded at point 7 to the drip channel 4.
A pillar 8 as shown in FIG. 1 is provided such that the roof member 6 placed on the member 3 from right above is coupled to the member 3 at point 9 by brazing or arc brazing as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.
In FIGS. 2 and 3, there is shown a side inner member 10.
With the above arrangement, the members 6 and 3 are to be vertically coupled together at the pillar 8 so that placement of the member 6 on the member 3 from right above causes no structral problems; however, there are problems in that the drip channel 4 is needed to mount the member 6 and that troublesome working such as brazing or arc brazing is required.
For this reason, a roof structure with no drip channel has been proposed and employed in recent years.
In this roof structure with no drip channel, as shown in FIGS. 5 to 8, a boundary between a roof member 11 and a side outer member 12 is not at the pillar 8 but at a roof 14. The members 11 and 12 are respectively formed with groove-defining side walls 15 and 17 and groove-defining bottoms 16 and 18. The bottom 16 of the member 11 is placed on and spot-welded to the bottom 18 of the member 12 to provide the boundary in the form of a groove 20 substantially extending in a longitudinal direction 19 of the vehicle. The groove 20 is filled with molding (not shown) made of rubber or synthetic resin to hide the boundary.
Thus, the use of the roof structure with no drip channel eliminates the need for the drip channel 4 as well as troublesome working such as brazing or arc brazing.
However, the roof structure with no drip channel as described has a below-mentioned disadvantage.
Generally, as seen in FIG. 5, a vehicle has, on its front and rear sides, windows 21 (particularly, a substantially vertical window on the rear side in the case of a pickup truck). Accordingly, the members 11 and 12 must be provided at their longitudinal ends with unexposed surface portions 26 and 27 as shown in FIG. 6 which comprise inward bends 22 and 23 for engagement with a pane of glass for the window 21 and lower margins 24 and 25 for support of the glass pane, respectively.
The unexposed surface portions 26 and 27 are inevitably receded relative to exposed surface portions 28 and 29 of the roof 14. Hence, there is a fair possibility that the roof member 11 cannot be placed on the side outer member 12 from right above since the unexposed surface portion 26 of the member 11 interferes at space 30 with the exposed and unexposed portions 29 and 27 of the member 12.